Travis County Commissioners Court
December 20, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 32
>> now let's call back to order the voting session of the Travis County Commissioners court, and mr. Eckstein, should we call up 32 in open court here?
32 is consider and take appropriate action on redistricting plans for the following Travis County precincts: a, county Commissioners, b justices of the peace and constables, and c, elections, voter tabulate districts.
>> judge Biscoe, members of the court, thank you very much.
at this time I will not be asking the court to take any action, but I want to update out the status of the redistricting situation as I think the members of the court are aware, the -- and let me turn to the power point presentation that I have made available for you.
as you know, redistricting happens every ten years.
during the regular session of the legislature, the legislature passes redistricting plans for the state board of education, state house and state senate.
during a special session in June they passed the redistricting plan for the congress, for the 36 congressional districts in Texas.
and in July submitted those to the department of justice for pre-clearance.
in August the Commissioners court approved new lines for the justice of the peace and constable precincts, and in September approved new lines for the Commissioner precincts, and on October 4th approved new lines for our election precincts.
so I want to talk a little about election precincts now.
election precincts, also known as voting tabulation districts, are required under the Texas election code to have only one -- each precinct can only have one of the following in it.
a congressional district, a state board of education district, state senate district, state house district, county Commissioner precinct, and justice of the peace/constable precinct.
so what we really have to do is draw the line so that all six of the sets of lines match up with each other.
we did that in -- in October with the current vtds, which are on the slide that you are looking at now, and on those current vtds those conform to plans adopted by the legislature.
however, there has been litigation filed challenging those plans adopted by the legislature and there are three different courts that have assumed jurisdiction over all or part of the redistricting puzzle.
the ball of confusion, so to speak.
there's a three-judge panel in washington, d.c.
ist state filed with that three-judge panel in order to get approval under the voting rights act of the new redistricting plans.
that court refused to grant summary judgment for the state, thereby quick -- quick approving the plans and in fact indicated that it had concerns about those plans.
there is now a trial set in that court on those plans for January.
there's also a three-judge panel in san antonio that assumed jurisdiction of the case after several plaintiffs that were challenging the state's plans filed suit.
Travis County was among those plaintiffs.
and that court has really sort of assumed jurisdiction for administering whatever plans are designed and whatever -- how to hold the election.
they ordered, as you know, right around thanksgiving time, interim plans for the 2012 elections and came up with a new schedule for filing, for primaries and so forth to comply with those interim plans.
then the united states supreme court got involved and they intervened in the case.
the state appealed the three-judge panel's decision to the supreme court and the supreme court on December 9th stayed the implementation of those plans.
that sort of threw everything up into turmoil.
that was a mere ten days ago.
so what has now happened is the three-judge panel in san antonio which still has jurisdiction over the case last Friday issued an order consistent with the supreme court's stay of the implementation of the court ordered plans, issued an order last Friday saying that it would take testimony or have oral hearing on those plans in January and to hold off on everything until such time as either it cleared the plans that the three-judge panel in san antonio had done or had issued some other plans.
so the three-judge panel in san antonio now has come out with a new election schedule of the most salient feature was it extended the filing deadline which was original going to be Thursday the 15th and got moved to Friday the 16th until yesterday afternoon at 6:00.
so the filing period has closed.
the schedule that the court in san antonio has issued assumes the supreme court will have taken whatever action it wants to take and given whatever instructions it wants to give with respect to the drawing of a new map in such a way that by, say, January -- somewhere between January 25th and January 31st there will actually be new maps which will be in place for the 2012 election.
under that schedule the primary will be held, it will be held April 3rd.
there are a series of time tables that have to be met and I have handed out to you a timetable that was assembled by a lawyer who has been following the litigation.
this is not an official timetable.
I understand that sometime late this morning the secretary of state put out their revised timetable, which I will check against the handout I've just given you.
once the new maps are available, the filing period will reopen, people will have an opportunity if they had filed for a position and no longer wish to run for it to withdraw or to change the office they want to run for and so forth.
for the county, the two key milestones for the county are that we must draw new election precinct boundaries that will conform with the new maps boundaries by January 31st.
so again, that's a very tight timetable, and depending on when the court issues new maps we will do our best to try to get that in front of the court as quickly -- in front of this court as quickly as we can so they can take action by January 31st if at all possible.
voter rental administration certificates will be sent out somewhere around February -- have to be sent out around February 13th.
that's the current timetable ordered by the court in san antonio.
that is subject to change depending on a number of things, most importantly on whether or not new maps have been drawn by -- again, by the 25th of January or thereabout.
on the next page I list the next steps in the process.
the supreme court will hear oral argument on the case on January 9th, 2012.
the three-judge panel in san antonio will conduct a trial -- I'm sorry, the three-judge panel will is conduct a trial that is scheduled to last January 26 -- final arguments are scheduled for February 3rd.
and in the meantime the court in san antonio continues to have jurisdiction over the case and may modify its order with respect to time lines and so forth based on what is going on out in the world with the maps and with the other courts and with them taking action.
so the short version or the short version of that is that everything is very confused right now.
we do have a timetable.
that timetable assumes some very important things and we will continue to keep the court advised about that is correct but we anticipate coming back to the court sometime in late January with yet another plan for election precinct boundaries that will conform the current election precinct boundaries to whatever changes are made to the congressional or legislative maps.
>> a question.
one is should I assume the three-judge panel in washington, d.c.
has the same authority, power as the three-judge panel in san antonio?
>> I saw david move so I may have deferred him on this question --
>> we also have schedule add item with renee hicks in executive session to talk about our -- you know, our case, and I think that might be the more appropriate place for us to explain what each of the jurisdiction's different roles, each of the different roles the three courts have.
>> all we've heard so far has been regarding the primary election.
the general election is still in November?
>> yes, sir.
>> none of these touch the general.
>> any other questions for mr. Eckstein?
always a pleasure to hear from you whether it's good news or bad.
>> yes, sir.
thank you, judge.
thank you, members.
>> so we don't need to take this into executive session.
the other item will cover --
>> that's right.
unless you have any --
>> there's no action we're asking on this item.
this is really more in the nature of a briefing.
it is related obviously to the other item which will be brought up in executive session.
>> okay.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
